Daredevil Comet Making Death Plunge Into Sun

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A newly discovered comet is making a kamikaze dive into the sun
today, just hours after a solar storm sent a massive cloud of
charged particles streaking into space.

The comet was detected on Monday (Sept. 12) by amateur
astronomers Michal Kusiak of Poland and Sergei Schmalz of
Germany, according to the website Spaceweather.com, which
monitors space weather and skywatching events.

"The icy visitor from the outer solar system is expected to
brighten to first magnitude before it disintegrates during the
late hours of Sept. 14th," Spaceweather.com wrote in an
update Tuesday.

In a visually dramatic coincidence, the comet is making its death
plunge just hours after the sun unleashed a powerful coronal mass
ejection (CME) — an eruption that can blast billions of tons of
solar plasma into space at speeds up to 3 million mph (5 million
kph).

The Solar & Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft, a
joint project of NASA and the European Space Agency, captured
both the solar storm and the doomed comet's progress on video.

The kamikaze comet is thought to belong to the so-called Kreutz
family of comets, Spaceweather.com reported. Kreutz comets
have orbits that approach within a few hundred thousand miles of
the sun.

All Kreutz comets are believed to be the remains of one giant
comet that broke apart several centuries ago. They are named
after 19th-century German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz, who first
demonstrated that such comets were related.

The sun has been spouting off more big CMEs and strong solar
flares recently as it works toward a maximum in its 11-year
activity cycle. Just last week, for example, the sun generated
two X-class flares — the strongest type — and three CMEs.

If they're powerful enough and aimed directly at Earth, CMEs can
wreak havoc, disrupting GPS signals, radio communications and
power grids. However, last week's solar eruptions delivered mere
glancing blows to our planet, so the effects were mainly limited
to dazzling, super-charged
displays of the northern lights.

Scientists expect the peak of the current cycle, which is known
as Solar Cycle 24, to come in 2013.

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